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Friday, February 1, 2019

Rant

I just read the new diagnostic criteria for PTSD in DSM 5 and I am so
horrified I can barely stand it. What a crock of shit. Basically, it
says, "Let's express our complete lack of understanding of WHY people
have these symptoms and cluster them in an even more randomly ignorant
way to make them look like nut jobs." I fucking hate the American Psychiatric Association. I lived through DSM II which came out in 1968 and on the basis of opinion, decided that if you were affected
by a trauma for more than six months you had to be diagnosed with a
preexisting condition like narcissism. Bob was diagnosed with "anxiety,"
so condescending to a guy who flew into hot LZ's day after day and
never once said no to any request for help. The DSM II actually was
published DURING the 1968 TET Offensive and was used to mistreat
Vietnam vets and ignore their post-traumatic reactions and pretend they
were whiners and nut jobs. It was not till 1980 that the diagnosis
of PTSD was forced into the DSM III by people who had worked with
veterans of all wars, Holocaust survivors, rape, incest and battering
survivors, and survivors of disasters, natural and man made. That's a
long time to be stigmatizing and misdiagnosing people. So no wonder
the women on the PTSD wives groups I joined have absolutely no
understanding of what is going on. I know why they are so mad, because I
was too. I took it all personally till I read the DAV pamphlet,
"Readjustment Problems of Vietnam Veterans," which made me cry because
there was a name for it and other people had it too. But these women
are being fed diagnostic criteria that make their husbands look
mentally ill, instead of having a normal reaction to trauma. It is hard
to live with but vets are not crazy.

About Me

I'm the wife of a Vietnam vet, Robert Mason, who wrote the book, Chickenhawk, a memoir of his tour as a helicopter pilot, who came home with PTSD. 51st anniversary on Dec 2. We have been through a lot. Recovering from the War is the book I wrote when we found out about PTSD. I continue to write about it. I am also working at writing fantasy and scifi for young adults and picture books.

Welcome to my Blog on PTSD

My blog is intended to help you find help for yourself, whether it is you or your spouse that has PTSD.I have very decided opinions on what PTSD is, a collection of survivor skills that help you at the time of the trauma but can later become your biggest problems.I am glad to see attempts at resilience training in the military, but I tend to doubt that it actually prevents PTSD, especially since resilience has historically been a code word for workaholism, something psychiatrists tend not to notice.There is no one-size-fits-all treatment for PTSD, and although you may find a treatment which helps with all your most distressing symptoms, I prefer the word remission to the term cure, since as yet there are no 20 or 50 year follow up studies on any treatment. That way, if you find your symptoms returning when there is another war or other trauma, you know that what worked once will work again and you can go for more help.Research has shown that traumatic events are cumulative, starting in childhood, and the effects are worse when human cruelty, neglect, betrayal and indifference are part of it. PTSD is even worse when the institutions which are supposed to help you, practice cruelty, neglect, betrayal and indifference, as is happening a lot these days. It is just as bad as when a parent or spouse traumatizes someone.I will be blogging on things I have seen to be helpful.